Loretta Lynn Is Still Writing Songs, Just Not as Often as She’d Like

Loretta Lynn is one of country music's prolific songwriters, and she's not letting recent health battles get in the way of her lifelong passion.

Lynn has endured a series of ailments over the past few years, including a stroke in 2017 and a fractured hip in 2018, when a fall at her home led to stints in the hospital. Still, don't count her out as an active artist.

The iconic singer has long been an innovator when it came to songwriting, a practice that she says is still an important part of her life. And while she doesn't write as frequently as she did in her early days in the business, she hopes to make it a priority moving forward.

"I've done quite a bit," Lynn says of how often she's been writing songs recently. "I want to get back into it real good, though, like I used to. I used to write all the time, now I'm just writing when I want to and that's not good, because I don't want to do it."

Lynn's latest album, Wouldn't It Be Great, was met with critical acclaim when it was released in September of 2018 after health-related delays. Like with many of her other trailblazing efforts, Lynn co-wrote every song on the project, which was a remake of some of her defining songs like "Don't Come Home a Drinkin,'" "Coal Miner's Daughter" and the title track. It was originally scheduled for release in August of 2017, but Lynn decided to delay it while she was recovering.